Should state spend more to keep track of sex offenders?

Should the state spend more to help keep track of convicted sex offenders? That’s the question following a MyNorthwest.com report earlier this week that authorities in King County alone didn’t know the whereabouts of nearly 400 sex offenders.

Sex offenders are supposed to register their address and notify officials if they move. If they’re homeless, they’re also required to check in once a week. If they fail to do so, they’re considered non-compliant. As of Monday, there were 387 of them.

But tracking them down is a monumental task for law enforcement. King County has just five full-time staff members on its sex offender unit, three detectives and two program managers. They work diligently to locate each one, Sgt. Cindi West told KIRO Radio.

“We have just over 3,800 sex offenders registered in King County. Imagine with all of those checks that have to be done, how many man hours it takes to do that. So it’s difficult for us to keep track of these guys some times,” she said.

It’s clear devoting more money to the effort makes a difference. King County has cut the number of non-compliant sex offenders by 50 percent since receiving a grant in 2008 to expand staffing.

State Senator Pam Roach (R-Auburn) has worked for years in the state Legislature to crack down on sex offenders and protect victims. She told the Jason Rantz Show it would cost about $120,000 a year to fund each additional law enforcement officer.

“I don’t think that’s a very big investment considering what it is we can achieve,” Roach said. “You heard Sgt. West talk about the fact that we reduced the rate from 21 percent to 10 percent of those that are non-compliant. So every law enforcement officer that would be hired can bring it down about 1 percent. We’re talking King County. So if you came up with about $700,000, then you theoretically, could bring it down another 5 percent.”

But getting the Legislature to approve that is unlikely. Roach suggested local governments could help fund additional officers dedicated to sex crimes, but would only do so if the public clamored for it.

“It is a huge portion of county budgets, but we also need to know that in King County, there are nine King County councilmembers. I think our citizens should be approaching them as well as legislators and not look solely to the state for these things,” she said.

Roach conceded there’s only so much officials can do to keep sex offenders behind bars or monitored, and reiterated the public needs to remain vigilant.

“It’ll never be a perfect world, we’ll do all we can,” she said.

Roach encouraged people to check the online sex offender database to become aware of the registered sex offenders in their neighborhood, and keep a watchful eye on children and those they come in contact with, even friends and family.

“Really, you have to run on the idea of you can’t really trust too many people and even sometimes those you trust are the ones that are the perpetrators. You’ll find relatives, you’ll find scout leaders, you’ll find religious counsel, neighbors. It’s usually people that are known to the victim that commit the crime, the sex crime, that is the usual situation. So that would behoove us to be very, very careful.”